Are we related?

This is a special blog, for Remembrance Day.  William Mitchell’s Army No. was 58767.  His mother (my grandmother) died on November 11, 1907, at Troon Scotland — exactly 100 years ago today.  William was then 15 years old.  When WWI started, he was just the right age to enlist, which he did in 1915.  He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in France.  We have one notice from the War Office advising that William Mitchell was admitted to No.32 Stationary Hospital at Wimereux (which is close to Boulogne) on 3/10/1917.  This points to his being wounded sometime in late September as he would first be taken to a front line Regimental Aid Post where he would have emergency treatment, then on to a Casualty Clearing Station close behind the front line to await transport by train to a base hospital. This transfer took a long time if heavy losses were being suffered. We believe he was injured in the vicinity of Ypres.

My brother recollects that our father was wounded three times. The notice we have was probably the second of two shrapnel injuries. The third time he suffered from poison gas and as a result was in hospital at the Military Hospital, Netley in Southampton for some time after the end of the War. 

Father survived WW1 and went on to marry and produce 4 children.  However, he died from Carcinoma of Bronchus in 1950 while still a relatively young man, and my belief is that he gave his life for his country even though he survived the War.

Mitch Mitchell.

I’ve been writing blogs in the past without knowing that’s what I’ve been doing!  For 10 years or more, I’ve been working on my family’s history.  Every so often, I’d do a little write-up and dispatch it to my brothers and my sister, or upload it to my website so that the cousins overseas could read it too.

It all started with a boxful of old letters, written in the period 1857 to 1888, which had been carefully hoarded and treasured over the years and which came into my hands in the mid 1990’s.  I began by grouping them, sometimes by address and sometimes by hand-writing, and then sorting them in date order.  Some of the old writing proved difficult, to say the least, and some letters were extremely fragile.  It took about a year to organise them and do a typed transcription, which I duly uploaded to my web space.  I think that was in the year 1998.
 
Having identified the writers of the letters, most of which were addressed to my great-grandparents by one or other of their offspring, or by a niece or nephew, I then began the task of identifying other people and other places mentioned in those letters.  For example, cousin Ellen’s letter written in April 1871 says, “He called at Liverpool and saw my brother and Agnes Mitchelson.”  Now, I know who wrote the letter, who called at Liverpool and who the brother was, but do you think I can identify this Agnes Mitchelson?  No way!

And then there was the mysterious letter from Liverpool, the front page of which was missing which would have given the date it was sent.  

As you can see, the sender’s name (William Thorrat) and mailing address are included on the final page.  He relates to his sister how he returned home after being at sea 17 days, to find his wife close to death (she died 2 days later), leaving him with an infant daughter at dry nurse and not a penny in the house.  The letter doesn’t mention the other children, but there were 1 or 2 boys in the household, one of whom was subsequently raised by my great-grandparents.  And to crown it all, the Thorrat boy ultimately married ‘cousin Ellen’ who wrote the letter referred to in the preceding paragraph, and they settled in South Shields.  UPDATE.  Within the last few weeks, I’ve been contacted by a great-granddaughter of these 2 individuals, and “joy, oh joy”, she has lots of old family photographs which she is willing to share.

I ought not to complain, as I’ve found many cousins and solved a good number of mysteries.  But the biggest mystery of all remains unsolved, and will be the subject of a future blog.

Mitch, researching Mitchelson, Mitchel, Mitchell - mainly in Kirkcudbright and Dumfries, but some may have escaped across the Border!

Family research is like a huge jigsaw puzzle with lots of pieces missing.  Each piece that fits in place is a cause for rejoicing.  So many new cousins have come into my life since I started family research.   If these pages bring even one more into the fold, then the whole effort will be worthwhile.

Mitchelson (or Mitchell) is my main line, and I can get back to an 1812 marriage in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright.  I suspect these Mitchelsons may have lived in England at an earlier point in time.

John Mitchelson married a Mary Thurot (1812) and her parents conveniently have some details on their gravestone at Kirkbean Cemetary, showing they both died in 1833 and their approximate age at that time.  Where did John Thurot come from, is the question everyone asks.